Save Our Hospitals is a resident-led campaign group formed in July 2012. We are FIGHTING against the NHS plans to DEMOLISH Charing Cross Hospital and downgrading of our A&Es( Hammersmith, Charing Cross, Ealing and Central Middlesex Hospitals)

Ross Lydall

A London NHS trust has admitted it is short of 100 beds as it struggles to cope with an influx of patients after closing one of its A&E departments.

Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow is admitting up to 138 patients a day — taking up more than a quarter of beds on its entire site — following the axing of the casualty unit at Central Middlesex in Park Royal.

David McVittie, chief executive of The North West London Hospitals NHS trust, which runs both sites, said the bed shortage would last until a 56-bed temporary prefab unit opens next autumn. He told campaigners: “You are right to be concerned.”

Brent North Labour MP Barry Gardiner criticised the trust for closing the A&E at Central Middlesex before a new £21 million casualty department opens at Northwick Park in November. He said: “I’m really angry. This is exactly what I said two years ago.

“They should have realised it was complete folly to close an A&E at Central Middlesex that the Care Quality Commission has just rated as good, and to put an extra strain and burden on an A&E at Northwick Park the CQC has said is inadequate and needs improving.”

Hospital bosses say casualty attendances at Northwick Park began peaking in mid-August, and were exacerbated by the September 10 closure at Central Middlesex. Last week, the proportion of casualty patients seen within four hours at Northwick Park fell to 72.8 per cent — the NHS target is 95 per cent. A total of 130 patients waited between four and 12 hours.

Despite a 20-bed ward opening to ease the pressure, trust deputy chief executive Chris Pockington said Northwick Park remains “80 to 100” beds short — raising concerns about its ability to cope with winter. Mr McVittie, who will quit as trust chief executive next year, told its board: “As we sit here today, you would be right to be concerned about some of these bed projections.”

Trust bosses say the problem has been caused by an influx of older patients, delays in discharging people from hospital into social care, and more patients arriving by ambulance. London Ambulance Service said it made 2,921 trips to Northwick Park between August 23 and September 23 — 129 more than the same period last year.

Sunday, 28 September 2014

The sale of a large part of the Charing Cross hospital site is the only way to avoid using a “disastrous” PFI deal to fund rebuilding plans, campaigners have been told.

In angry scenes, Sir Richard Sykes, chairman of Imperial College NHS trust, said there was a pressing need to upgrade its sister hospital, St Mary’s, and convert Charing Cross into an outpatient day surgery hospital.

He said: “If we are going to spend £650 million to bring our hospitals up to modern standards, that £650 million has got to come from somewhere, and the Government are not handing out money, as we know.

“PFIs for many hospitals are disastrous. There’s a £7 billion PFI and Barts and they pay £100 million in interest [a year] before they even see a patient. We don’t want to go down that route.”

Under Imperial’s plans, land sales would generate £242 million, leaving it to borrow a further £408 million from the Department of Health’s independent trust finance facility.

Charing Cross would be reduced in size by about four-fifths and would lose 336 inpatient beds and have its accident and emergency department downgraded to an “emergency centre” of as yet unknown capacity to treat the most critically ill patients.

Concerns over the A&E at Charing Cross intensified when the emergency unit atHammersmith and A&E at Central Middlesex hospitals closed on September 10.

Sir Richard, fighting back against hostility from Save Our Hospitals campaigners at Imperial’s AGM on September 24, told them: “We don’t have any choice. We have a 19th century, 18th century estate on one of our sites [St Mary’s], trying to deliver healthcare to the best possible quality for your benefit.

“If we don’t do that we will be in serious, serious trouble. There will be all sorts of problems. We have to rebuild our estate for your benefit, not for mine.”

Andy Slaughter, Labour MP for Hammersmith, said challenged Dr Tracey Batten, Imperial’s chief executive, to guarantee that “there will be no further closures or run-down of services, particularly at Charing Cross, unless and until you can demonstrate there is not a demand for these services”. He added: “Not to do that will be incredibly irresponsible.”

Dr Batten said the trust was “guided by our clinicians” in all the proposed changes. She said: “We can only change the number of beds within our facilities when these community services are established. That is the way we need to work.”

Thursday, 25 September 2014

A hospital boss today called for the public to become less reliant on A&E units as she prepared to face hundreds of campaigners fighting to save Charing Cross hospital.

Dr Tracey Batten, the new chief executive of Imperial College NHS trust, said the NHS had to switch priority from “illness to wellness” in a major reorganisation of services across north-west London.

Imperial has been hit by a backlash from Save Our Hospital campaigners,Labour MPs and Hammersmith and Fulham council over plans to axe 336 inpatient beds at Charing Cross and turn it into a much smaller daycare hospital.

Dr Batten used an interview with the Standard ahead of the trust’s annual meeting tonight to call for the public to be better educated in the benefits of being treated at home or in the community rather than in hospital.

She says preventative care could minimise the risk of heart attack, while alternative “pathways of care” could be developed for stroke patients and those undergoing hip replacements.

She said: “One thing I would say about this reorganisation is that if you look at the NHS, it has traditionally been quite an illness-led healthcare system.

“When people get sick, they come into hospital and we treat them incredibly well. That has skewed healthcare dollars towards the hospital end of the provision.

“There is no doubt going forward we do need to shift from an illness to a wellness model. We do need to shift the balance between you getting ill and coming into my hospital and us keeping you well at home.”

Despite the closure two weeks ago [September 10] of the emergency unit at Hammersmith hospital, also run by Imperial, and its replacement with an urgent care centre, Dr Batten insisted changes at Charing Cross would not happen “for a couple of years”.

Its A&E will become an “emergency centre” – but she admitted she was not yet sure what this would contain due to the lack of “crystal clear” guidance from NHS England.

“It doesn’t surprise me that people are very attached to the physical hospital and the A&E department because of what it symbolises,” she said. “But should we be so reliant on them in the way we have been? No we shouldn’t.

“If you take my mum in her 80s, is she better turning up to the A&E department? It’s the last thing she wants to be doing. She wants to get the care she needs in her local community or at home. I think that is the same for most of us.

“If people knew they had different options [to A&E], they would probably go for these different options.”

She added: “At the AGM, it’s about trying to give them that reassurance that we’re not going to do this in a vacuum. You can never engage too much and you can never communicate too much. We haven’t been perfect. I would be the first to admit that.”

“You can go round the mulberry bush many times. I’m not sure that is going to get us much further than where we are.”

Kate and William leave the Lindo wing with Prince George

* The Duchess of Cambridge would be welcomed with “open arms” by St Mary’s hospital if she chose it for the birth of her second child.

Kate gave birth to Prince George last year at the private Lindo wing, and she is expected to return there next year. The Lindo was also where Princess Diana gave birth to William and Harry.

Dr Batten said: “We would obviously be delighted if she decides to have her second child here. We would embrace her with open arms. We obviously don’t as yet know. I gather it went extremely well last time, and if we get the opportunity we would love to do another one.”

Hammersmith and Central Middlesex are being replaced with 24-hour urgent care centres, which care for walk-in patients as part of a re-organisation of the capital's health services which will see fewer - but bigger A&E units.

BBC London's health correspondent Karl Mercer spoke to hospital campaigner Gloria Wildman, Dr Ruth Brown from Imperial College Healthcare Trust, Councillor Julian Bell the Labour leader of Ealing Council and David McVittie, the chief executive of North West London Hospital Trust.

The group recommended changes to the A&E departments at Hammersmith and Central Middlesex hospitals should take place as soon as practicable but said further work was required for Ealing and Charing Cross.

Under the plans, nine hospitals in north-west London will be redesigned so the most serious emergencies can be dealt with at A&Es in Hillingdon, Northwick Park, West Middlesex, Chelsea and Westminster or St Mary's hospitals.

Mr Hunt said: "Improvements in emergency care alone should save around 130 lives per annum and the transformation in out-of-hospital care will save many more, giving north-west London probably the best out-of-hospital care anywhere in the country."

He said he wanted to end the uncertainty around the future of Ealing and Charing Cross.

Mr Hunt said any changes as a result of the programme should be implemented by local commissioners following "proper" talks with the public.

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said the decision not to close the A&E units represented a minor concession at a time of "brutal surgery" on west London's NHS.

He said the changes were primarily about "saving money, not saving lives".

'Weasel words'

Addressing Mr Hunt in the Commons, Mr Burnham said: "You talk of their A&Es being of a different size and shape.

"Isn't that just spin for saying that these units will be downgraded and become urgent care centres? Or are you giving them a permanent reprieve?

"If you can't answer those questions directly I'm afraid local people in those areas will take what you have said as just weasel words."

The health secretary said Labour should be "shouting from the rooftops" to support the proposals as they would mean more emergency doctors, more critical care doctors and more psychiatric support, and were supported by the medical directors of all nine trusts affected.

The Department of Health said the changes to A&E at Hammersmith and Central Middlesex hospitals would be made after the winter.

Under the plans, £80m will be spent on both Ealing and Charing Cross hospitals, which will have A&E units open 24 hours a day.

These will have senior doctors and nurses and other emergency care professionals; access to specialist consultant opinion, social care and psychiatry; a range of diagnostic services including pathology and radiology, and the ability to admit people to hospital.

Mr Hunt said resources being taken out of some acute services would be used to give "better and safer" services.

He said an example of changes having a positive impact was stroke services in north-west London, which have been centralised in Charing Cross and Northwick Park, resulting in stroke mortality rates in London halving.

'Continue to fight'

The Labour leader of Ealing Council, Julian Bell, said: "We've been told the maternity unit has been closed - you can't have your baby at Ealing Hospital; blue light ambulances can't come - that in my book is not an A&E and it's not a major hospital.

The Liberal Democrat MP for Brent Central, Sarah Teather, said it would be vital for health managers to ensure Transport for London made sure the necessary new travel patterns could be accommodated.

Former shadow health minister Diane Abbott said it was important that "ordinary people" supported the plans.

"Londoners are particularly cautious about these reconfigurations because of historic problems about access to GPs, because of the many excluded communities for whom A&E is their primary care, and because the institutions are often major employers in their area," she said.

Andy Slaughter, Labour MP for Hammersmith and secretary of the Save Our Hospitals campaign, said: "There will be no A&E at Hammersmith Hospital in one of the most deprived areas of London and there are no promises to keep the beds and services at Charing Cross open.

"We will continue to fight these closures until we have a council and a government that will listen to local people and keep our excellent hospitals open."